How To Make The Best Bolognese Of Your Life

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Today we’re making Pasta alla Bolognese. I hope you enjoy it!

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INGREDIENTS
1 pound (454g) pappardelle or tagliatelle
1/4 pound (114g) pancetta – diced
3/4 pound (340g) ground pork
3/4 pound (340g) ground 80/20 chuck
2 ribs celery – finely diced
1 large carrot – finely diced
1 medium onion – finely diced
3 anchovy fillets
1 cup (240ml) dry red wine
1 cup (240ml) low-sodium beef stock
2 28-ounce cans plum tomatoes – hand crushed or blender-pulsed
1 large Parmigiano Reggiano rind
2 large bay leaves
1/2 cup (120ml) milk – divided
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 pinch nutmeg
salt and pepper – to taste
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Preheat the oven to 300°F.
2. Heat a large Dutch oven or heavy pot to medium heat with the pancetta. Cook the pancetta until most of the fat has rendered (about 7-10 minutes).
3. Add in ground pork and beef and saute until brown (about 7-10 minutes) while breaking it up with a wooden spoon or meat masher.
4. Remove the meat with a slotted spoon to a plate and set aside. Add the vegetables and anchovies to the pot along with a pinch of salt and saute until very soft (about 12-15 minutes).
5. Add the meat back to the pot along with the wine and turn the heat to high. Once the wine evaporates, add the beef stock, half the milk, crushed tomatoes, Parmigiano Reggiano rind, and bay leaves and bring to a boil.
6. Once boiling, turn off the heat and cover. Place the pot into the oven and cook for 3 hours. After 3 hours, remove the lid and cook for another 30 minutes.
7. After 3 hours, the fat from the meat and the pancetta will float to the top, and the ragu will have thickened somewhat. Degrease the pot with a spoon or paper towels, leaving some of the fat on top. Add the remaining milk and optional cream and stir to combine. Cook on the stovetop at a simmer for 15-30 minutes more.
8. Bring a large pot of salted water to boil and cook the pappardelle until 1 minute less than al dente. Reserve 1 cup of pasta water.
9. To sauce the pasta, add 2 cups of the bolognese sauce and a 1/2 cup of pasta water to a pan over medium-low heat, then add in the ‘1 minute less than al dente’ pasta and cook for 1-2 minutes so that the pasta can absorb the sauce. Add extra sauce as required. Add a pinch of nutmeg and serve with grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. Enjoy!
NOTES
– Cooking the sauce the day before adds a tremendous amount of flavor upon reheating the next day.
– Leftovers can be saved for up to 3 days in the fridge and can be frozen for up to 6 months.

VIDEO EDITOR:
Billy Mark: @bluecrestproductions

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I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Today we’re going to make a real family favorite, pasta bolognese. This is one of the best recipes you can make when the weather cools down. So, let’s go over the ingredients quickly. I have one medium onion that is finally diced, two celery ribs, finely diced, and one medium carrot finally diced. If you don’t want to break out your knife and finally dice them, just throw all of it in a food processor. Get it really small. It helps it melt like come together into your bolognese. I have three anchovies. This is an atypical ingredient, but it’s going to add a much more umami flavor, like meaty flavor to it. It’s not going to add a seafood flavor to it. And I also have a parmesan rind over here. That’s the other kind of flavor boosting ingredient. You can take both of these out. You can use one or the other. The choice is yours. If you take both of them out, the recipe is still going to be really good. I have one cup of dry red wine. I have one cup of low sodium or no sodium beef stock. I have a half a cup of milk. The traditional way to do this, they always like if you look at like the Bolognia Chamber of Commerce, which you know, they like to say this is the official recipe. It will say if you’re using a dried pasta, which is what I have, you can use a little bit of cream at the end, too. And really, the choice is yours if you want to do that. But the milk is going to tenderize the meat while we let our bolognese simmer. We have 5 oz of panetta. Okay, that’s like our starting fat. You if you don’t have that, you can’t get it, you can just use olive oil. I have two 28 oz cans of plum tomatoes. You can blend or pulse these. You could use crushed if you like. It’s choice. The choice is yours there as well. 3/4b ground chuck, 3/4lb ground pork, two bay leaves, and the pasta. So, the pasta, I love papadelli with this. This is a dried one that is non- egg based. You can also buy an egg based one in the store. You can use your own homemade fresh pasta if you want to go that extra effort. Rietoni. Any tubular pasta will work. Fetuccini, tallelli, or really anything that’s substantial. I what I wouldn’t use would be like a thin pasta. I wouldn’t use spaghetti, which is very popular in the United States. I would use one of the pastas I suggested. Okay. So, I have a 5 C low brazer. So, you can just see in there. I want to use a oven safe pot. So, a heavy pot. It can be stainless steel. It could be a Dutch oven, anything like that, because we’re going to cook this in a 300 fahhe degree oven for the majority of the time, which makes it easier, especially if you have an electric stove where where the sauce where your ragu will uh start to burnt often. Okay, so I have this on medium and I’m just going to put all the panetta in there. All right, so we’re going to let this go until it starts rendering a good amount of fat and then we will add our meat into the equation. Okay, so while our panetta is getting going, I just want to let you know this is this recipe is in our new cookbook, Sip and Feast Family Favorites. You can turn the heat down a little bit if it’s starting to brown a little too much. Like right now, I just lowered it to a 3 out of 10. So the cookbook has over 100 recipes, 256 pages, great instructions, and we really think it solves a problem of like, what am I going to cook tonight? So there’s something for everyone in there. But yeah, we’re making a pasta today, and there is a lot of pasta in the cookbook. The link is up here. QR code here if you’re watching on TV. If you don’t like cookbooks, buy it for a friend or family who does. It would be make a great, I would say, Christmas gift. And uh we’re just really happy to be done with this process to be sharing it with you. Have no fear though. If you 100% don’t want to buy a cookbook, the recipe will be completely in the description for you. Thanks. Okay, so the panetta has rendered. Okay, you’re just left with these little pieces here. And there’s a lot of fat in in the pan. Going to push it off to the side. And then you can turn your heat up a little bit here. We’re going to put all the meat in. All right. I’m just going to try to push it around just so I get some even contact in my in my pot, pan, whatever you’re using. Just use something that’s large enough to make sure that you can get all your ragu in there. Going to pull some of that panetta on top so I can spread this out more and turn it up even more. About a six out of 10. And we’re not going to get much color here, but we want to just cook our meat initially, and then we will move on to the vegetables, which is the next step. It’s very easy recipe. There’s really nothing to this. It just comes down to cooking time. And I’ll say it later, but I’m going to say it again anyway. Overnight, it’s a million times better. So, you can make all this, you can do this on the weekend, and then you can have it during the week for like really easy pasta night. Okay, so while that’s going, while the meat is going, the tomatoes, you can just hand crush these. You could blender pulse them or I’ve been just been using this immersion blender a ton lately because it’s so darn easy. Sometimes you’ll get tomatoes that have a bunch of basil in it. I would remove the basil. It’s not really a flavor component I want in Bolognese and most people don’t want. And then your two cans that you have, just like rinse out the cans and you’ll get a lot more tomato in there. And just pour the excess into with your other tomatoes. All right, we’ll put these off to the side because we don’t need them quite yet. Okay, so it’s been going for a few minutes there. I’m just going to start breaking it up. I’m going to use a meat masher, but you could just use a wooden spoon if you don’t want this. But I got to tell you, this is a great tool. It’s eight bucks, and you can just like get in there and twist it. All right, we’re going to let it keep going. We’ll get rid of some of that water in the pan. I’m going to turn the heat up even more. Okay, so that’s good. Most of the water has evaporated. You can season this with a little bit of salt right now, but I wouldn’t do too much. If it’s not broken up enough for you, just go back in with your spoon or the meat masher. But that’s broken up fairly well. Okay, I’m gonna turn the heat down to I’m just actually going to just turn it off for a second. Okay, I really need to get a bigger one of these slotted spoons because when you’re dealing with um enameled, you you you shouldn’t put metal in in a pot like this. I want to just remove my meat just temporarily so we can do our vegetables. There’s just not enough room to do this in the pot. I mean, you can throw it in if you like, but I would just take it out. It’ll be quicker, too, doing it this way. All right. You don’t have to get every last bit. Okay. All the vegetables. Okay. That’s one medium onion that’s finally diced. Two celery ribs, finely diced. And one medium carrot, finely diced. Again, use a food processor if you want. I’m going to turn the heat to about a three or four out of 10. I don’t want to brown these. I want to get them very soft, though, and get the sweetness out of them. Okay. Pinch of salt again. I’m going to need olive oil in here. Even though I had all the fat there, most of it I just pulled out of the pan. It’s fine. So, get some more olive oil in here to help it out. And then the anchovi. Now, if you don’t want to use these, you don’t have to. You just would just omitt it at this step. But these are going to melt in there, too. I have three anchovi fillets. Okay? You can just mash it a little bit, but it’s all going to melt regardless. I love anchovi so much. I eat them like this. I I just love them. But the flavor is going to be a meteor flavor, which is what we want for our Bolognese. I can’t tell you how many bad bolognese I’ve had in my life, just where they lack a lot of flavor because the ingredients is not it’s not very on its own, there’s not too much there. You know, other cuisines like, you know, say Mexican or Asian, they be adding a ton of spices, a ton of everything in it. And uh, you know, Italian food is more about simplicity. But I still think this is not going to hurt. It’s going to make it better by putting that in there. You know, you might do that. You might say, “Oh, I I it needs even a couple more.” All right, we’re going to let these really get nice and soft. This whole process here is going to take about 15 minutes. If you’re if anything starts burning, add a splash of water or just take your pot off the heat for a second so it can cool down. So, this has been about 7 minutes. I’m going to let them go for at least another 7 or 8 minutes. All right, that’s what that looks like. Now, now again, don’t don’t brown it. Don’t put color on it. Just keep a little bit of water next to you and just pour it in if you need to. But I don’t need to. I have the I have the heat just right. Perfect. All right. So, this is going for about 15 minutes. But, I mean, you know, if you got the time, do it even a little bit longer. It’s going to be better. But that’s nice and soft. You can see how the celery kind of loses its color almost completely. Everything is released its water and you don’t have as much as when you started with as much volume as when you started with. So, let’s get all that meat back in there. All the meat, all the fat. All right, let’s cook this for a few minutes together. And I’ll turn the heat up a little bit now to about medium. Okay, so here’s a cup of dry red wine. I’m using Keianti, I think. I don’t know. I got like a couple bottles in the fridge. Any dry wine f dry red wine is fine for this, but you can also use white wine for this too. Either one is fine. People often ask what’s the difference. Um, red is definitely more body. I always associate that with beef. Red and white are fine for any meat dish like this, but it’s not the other way around. You wouldn’t when you’re making fish use a red wine. You would normally use a white wine for like something like say like a cod picata or something like that. But for anything like this, don’t feel like you have to like go out and buy a bottle. You can use a dry white or a dry red. Okay, I’m going to turn it up, okay, to almost high. And I just want this red wine to absorb into the meat right now. It’s going to evaporate quickly because it was just a cup. Wine has a lot of flavor. It’s hard to cook a lot of dishes as well when you’re not using it. All right. Now granted, I know if you can’t have it, there’s other things you can use, but you know, when you go to a typical restaurant, they’re almost always using wine in almost all of their dishes. All right, I’m just going to let it all evaporate. Really infuse it. Now, we’re just left with the fat down there. Okay, that’s one cup of low sodium beeftock. I’m actually using no sodium thankfully. I think I just have enough room in this pot. Okay, just bring this to a boil or rapid rapid simmer, whatever. Just get it get it hot before we put it into the oven. You don’t want to put it in when it’s cold. It’ll just take too long to heat back up again. And I just made it. This is a 5Q brazer. And the primary reason I’m using this is so you could see better with the camera here. Okay. If I was doing this on my own without shooting a video, I would use something higher, bigger, like an 8 quart. But it’s going to reduce when it cooks. You can also add about 1/4 cup to a/2 a cup of milk right now. The two bay leaves and the palm rind. Okay. So, the milk helps tenderize that meat a little bit, but the meat’s already would be fine without it. But we’re going to follow standard protocol here by adding a little bit of the milk. Okay, that’s enough. Just just make it’s hot now. Everything’s hot through. Turn it off. Now, listen. If you don’t have an oven, I recom I recommend you do it in the oven. 300° Fahrenheit for 3 hours. Okay, 3 hours. Then we’ll uncover it. We’ll let it cook a little bit longer. If you don’t have access to an oven, you don’t want to cook in your oven. Heat up your home. You can do it on the stove top. Just you’re going to have to come by and stir it very fairly regularly so nothing is sticking right now. Just check that nothing is sticking. It’s completely smooth at the bottom. And it is completely smooth. So, this means it’s not going to stick in the oven at 300° Fahrenheit. Okay. If you do it on the stove top, just cover it very low simmer. Stir it occasionally. All right, so I’m going to take this off and uh we’ll be back in 3 hours to see how it looks. Okay, so it’s been 3 hours, roughly 3 hours. Pull that off. You can see that. Oo, that looks good. Okay, so fat, a lot of fat is going to be at the top now. So now all I’m going to do here is to I’m not even going to mix it right now. Just let the fat stay on the top. Let’s put it back in the oven to get it a little bit more concentrated. I don’t really want to mix, but I’m just going to go in here like this. And there’s still a lot of liquid in here because our lid was very tight, so it limited evaporation. So, I’m just going to leave it in there, let it concentrate a little bit, about 30 minutes, and then we will check it from there. And uh we’re almost at the finish line. I can’t wait to try this one, and I think taste testers are going to love it. This is another 30 minutes. It went down a little bit. Definitely could have went more. You have a choice right now. You can degrease some of this fat. There’s a lot of fat here. There’s 80/20 chuck. There’s pork, which is a lot of fat. There’s the panetta, some olive oil. There’s a there’s a lot of fat in here. The milk. You can do this like with a ladle. You can just I’m going to show you a really quick way to do it. And you’re better off waiting, but cuz I want to eat soon, and I know the taste tester is going to want to try this, too. The longer you let this sit and you you let this sit overnight, then it’s super easy to do. It’ll just all float to the top. Some people don’t take the fat out at all here. They’ll just, you know, go for the eat the whole thing like that. But wherever there’s like a lot of fat, I’ll just come around with a paper towel and just pull a good amount of it out like so. It’s going to take some of the tomato away, but take some of it out. Again, overnight, you’re going to be able to get it all. And, you know, there’s not a ton here. You can fish those two bay leaves out. You can eat the palm that you put in there, the little palm rind. Bring the water to boil and you can simmer this a little bit longer right now while you’re waiting. I’m just going to turn it to about a four out of 10, roughly medium. Again, you’re using dried pasta here. You can add a touch of cream if you like. You could add a little bit more milk in if you like. Now, some people will want it to be very much like on the pinker side. And then you’ll sometimes, you know, you’ll just like it to look like this, which essentially looks like just a regular meat sauce. You can’t even tell that any milk was added to this at all. Yeah. And I don’t need this to be high, so I’m lowering it even more so I don’t splash all over the place. You can take a spatula like this and you could just wipe off the sides a little bit. There’s a lot of flavor there on those sides. You can just push it back into it. That’ll all like go in there, too. All right. That’s too high. Got a little bit more. Tara, what do you think? Touch of cream or not? You could. I I like it with I think it brings it all together a little bit without changing without changing the flavor at all. You could do a touch. Yeah. You’re going to upset the purists, but yeah. Well, you’re a rule. You’re a rule breaker. We’ll go like that. Exactly. And that’s like that’s only it’s like nothing. Well, they say with with dried pasta, it is it is a pure thing to add the cream, a touch of cream because the fresh pasta is so heavy and like it’s not light. You know, you think like, oh, people say my fresh pasta was so light. There’s nothing light about fresh pasta. You can eat less of it. Okay? You’re using eggs in it. All right? So, it’s not just flour and water and salt like this is. There you go. I like that more. Like that. All right, we’re just going to let it simmer very low. Let’s do a little taste test. And I definitely feel that little bit of cream like it just brings it all together. Helps emulsify all that fat, everything into one thing. Oh my god, it is incredible. Ter, you have to try this. This might be the best bolognese I ever made. Wow. Right. Oh my god. How potent is that? That’s actually I think I think that might be your best one. It’s so potent today. That’s amazing. I got to be honest. Normally bolognese I always have to put it in the fridge overnight, which is what every single restaurant does. I have to do it with anything like short rib ragu. I don’t have to do it for this one. All right. I’m going to cook the pasta till it’s 1 minute less than al dente. Okay. So, the pasta, this pasta says only 67 minutes. So, I’m going to check it at five. 67. 67. Yeah, exactly. Oh, but God, what what is that? I can’t say 67 around my kids anymore or or pretty much anybody under 25. And apparently not even around someone who’s 47 like me. Yes, exactly. Back to Bolognese. I like a little bit of nutmeg. If you don’t like this, don’t use it. I’m going to have a I have a nutmeg. A whole nutmeg. But I like a touch. Go easy. Start small and then work your way up. Because if you put too much in, you’re going to be emailing me like people do with recipes. They’re like, “James, I made your beeferoni and I put 8 tablespoons of black pepper in it. Can how can I fix this?” The answer is there’s nothing you can do to fix it. Okay, so same thing here. If you put too much nutmeg, it’s game over. You want a hint of it. All right, so let’s go test this. Man, that is so good. All right, so we’re good. I’m going to turn that off. I’m going to put my ragu right here. And by the way, you’re making more than you need for one pound of pasta. You should always do that because if you don’t have enough, it’s what’s the point of doing it? If you have leftovers, just freeze it. Save it in the fridge for another maybe half pound or so pasta during the week. Okay, I just dumped my pasta. Save a a cup of pasta water. Depending on how thick your ragu is, you might need a little bit, but we’ll see here if we even need it. Okay, medium heat. And I’m just going to start with a couple big big ladles in here. That’s my palm ry. I’ll just take it out for now. Okay, here’s my pasta. Beautiful papadelli. Or as they say here, papadell. You’re saying papadelli. Papardelli. Yeah. The e isn’t an e, it’s an e. Papadelli. Papardelli. Okay. I’m probably not saying it right either. And then people here just say papadell. Okay. So, I’m just going to put more on. You don’t want to over sauce it, but you don’t want to under sauce it either, you know. Okay. So, I think we’re going to need a little bit of that pasta water. Just a touch. That looks so good. Yeah. I love it. Okay. You don’t want to overcook this. So, just make sure you’re checking this as you’re doing it so you don’t go over. I think you need a nice glass of wine with that. Yeah, this is done. I agree. James isn’t having a glass of wine now. No, of course not. You can have a glass of wine later. So, we’re going to get a nice big block of Parmesan cheese, which is always great on here. All right, we’re going to see what the taste tester thinks. James, I got your favorite. I think it’s one of your favorites. I already put cheese on it, but it kind of melted. Do you want more? Why don’t you try it first, and we can put more? Yeah, I think it’s good. You are wearing the wrong shirt to be eating bolognese. My Yeah. Yes, you are. I won’t make a mess. You can bring the plate down if you I mean up if you want. Okay. Want a little sauce? More sauce? Yeah, sure. Pasta is very thin. It’s a thin pasta. This one only took 5 minutes. I love bolognese. Like you guys know, it’s one of my favorite things. Like I already know I’m going to give it. I’m just eating it. I want you to try just I want you to try the ragu by itself with nothing else because mama had it too and she thought like I thought it was like one of the best. I think it’s one of the best ones. Right. Very flavorful. I just love ground beef and I love pasta. Pork in there, too. Yeah. Little petta. It’s a 10. Like, for sure. No doubt about it. I already knew I was going to give it a 10 when I came down here. Um, okay. There’s not much to say. Checks in. Checks in the mail. What do you think of that pasta? Nice and thin. Yeah, could be a little thicker. Thicker. I actually kind of like that one. In my opinion, I kind of like the pop. What is it? Popelli. This is the thicker Padelli. We we buy so many different brands of it. This was um the house brand from um the store by us. Delver is also very thin. It’s wider. It’s really thin, too. DOS is not super thin. Dco makes an egg one and and just a semolina one. Ramo. They’re all a little different. What about nutmeg? Did you put nutmeg in? I did. Would you want to try a little bit more? Okay. So, nutmeg is very strong. That’s why I put a touch of it in it. But just see what that is. It’s good. It gives you like a nice like fall flavor. That’s right. Like winter full. Yeah. All right. I guess it’s So it doesn’t get a six or a seven. It gets a 10. So cringy. I somehow I said, “Oh, I said that before because of the pasta when it said six or seven minutes.” All right. Anyway, um you can look up what that means because he doesn’t know what nobody knows what it means. This is in the cookbook. It’s a recipe that it’s very similar to the one that’s already on our website. I I’m going to link the website recipe. I’ll probably put the this one in the description. Really, the only difference is the addition of anchovi and um the palm rind, I think. So, they’re they’re both fairly similar and uh you you you know, you’ll be straight with either one. Thanks for watching. We we always appreciate you coming here uh each and every week. uh you know, if you’re not subscribed, hit the subscribe button because YouTube has a tendency now to unsubscribe people. So, check if you’re subscribed and uh keep watching our videos. And James, what are you laughing at me? Because I’m doing like the typical YouTube thing. Yeah, I never did that ever. You shouldn’t. Well, I’m trying a little bit now. I’m trying, bro. Anyway, for those of you who made it to the end, thanks for listening to the rambling. Thanks for watching this guy all these years. And uh probably next video will probably be five inches taller than me, you know? Do it again. I have shoes on. I’ll take my shoes off. Let’s see. Be benching more than you soon. This is where my shoes off. You’re not going to be benching more than me anytime soon. Anytime soon, bro. Dude, I went up 20 lbs in a month. Okay. Anyway, we’ll see you next time.